Christopher Bowers-Broadbent
read his biography

Listen to Christopher Bowers-Broadbent performing six movements from Media Vita on 7th October 2006 at St Dominic's Priory, London NW5

Media Vita (1996)

In the Chapel of Gray's Inn (London) there is a new organ which, if small is beautiful, must be amongst the most sublime. It was built by Manders in 1993, has two 60-note manual organs, a 32-note pedal organ, mechanical action and 19 stops. Media vita is to a large extent inspired by that instrument, as is all my recent organ music. The work arises from many influences: my love of hymnody and of particular organ sounds being the most obvious. There are 11 short movements. They may be seen as simple chorale preludes. Each one is a re-writing of an ancient hymn or psalm tune, and each has a particular and definite characteristic, one, for instance, being for wooden 2’ alone, another for full chorus, etc. Composers of the 19th and 20th centuries mainly translated piano techniques to their organ music, which was fine but did not always allow the instrument to speak well. Here, I am looking for concentration, a sense of the underlying and understated harmonies, and strong rhythmic impulses, but above all an attempt to make new sense of that fundamental aspect of the instrument, which is that the basic pipe sound is constant, non-percussive and unmoving.

Duration: up to 30 minutes
Available from: the composer
Price: £10.00